Richard Whittall:

The Globalist's Top Ten Books in 2016: The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer

Middle East Eye: "

The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer is one of the weightiest, most revelatory, original and important books written about sport"

“The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer has helped me immensely with great information and perspective.”

Bob Bradley, former US and Egyptian national coach: "James Dorsey’s The Turbulent World of Middle Eastern Soccer (has) become a reference point for those seeking the latest information as well as looking at the broader picture."

Alon Raab in The International Journal of the History of Sport: “Dorsey’s blog is a goldmine of information.”

Play the Game: "Your expertise is clearly superior when it comes to Middle Eastern soccer."

Andrew Das, The New York Times soccer blog Goal: "No one is better at this kind of work than James Dorsey"

David Zirin, Sports Illustrated: "Essential Reading"

Change FIFA: "A fantastic new blog'

Richard Whitall of A More Splendid Life:

"James combines his intimate knowledge of the region with a great passion for soccer"

Christopher Ahl, Play the Game: "An excellent Middle East Football blog"

James Corbett, Inside World Football

Thursday, May 28, 2015

When Qatar won the right to host the 2022 World Cup, people flooded into the streets to celebrate a moment that saw the tiny gas-rich Gulf state elevated on to the global stage. Almost five years on, initial jubilation has mutated into subdued resignation at the rising tide of corruption claims against Doha’s bid and calls for greater protection for the labourers who will be building the stadiums and related infrastructure.

The steady stream of criticism has now exploded into a dramatic threat to the Qatar World Cup after seven Fifa officials were arrested on corruption charges relating to a US probe into bribery and a Swiss criminal investigation into the awarding of the tournaments in 2018 to Russia and 2022 in Qatar. “Everyone is watching this very nervously,” said one Doha-based businessman. “It is clear that this is very serious, but it is too early to tell.” The Qatari government has not commented on the arrests.

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The World Cup was the pinnacle of Qatar’s emerging strategy in the last decade to use its newfound financial muscle to promote the country as a major global player, from developing domestic interest in sports and culture to global investment into London property and European blue-chips.

Deloitte in 2013 estimated that Qatar would spend around $200bn in infrastructure in the run-up to the tournament. The Doha bourse declined 1.5 per cent on Wednesday after paring some of its losses after news of the arrests triggered a sell-off.

“Qatar has been its own worst enemy, wasting its soft power strategy down the drain,” said James Dorsey, a senior fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Singapore.

Increasingly Qataris question the point of hosting the event, but officials also recognise that the loss of face in losing the event amid scandal would be even worse. Since the Sunday Times’ revelations of 2014, Doha has always argued that there is no evidence that former Qatari Fifa executive committee member Mohammed bin Hammam, who has been banned from football amid corruption allegations, was acting on behalf of the state’s bid.

An internal Fifa investigation later that year cleared Qatar of wrongdoing, even though the report was not made public and the author disassociated himself from the outcome. At that stage, senior Qataris believed that the country could hunker down and focus on delivering the infrastructure for the tournament, getting newly-hired public relations executives to deflect the unwanted media attention. But observers in Doha are now fully aware that the escalation from internal probes to criminal investigations in Switzerland and the US marks a serious escalation of the crisis.

Mr Dorsey, the author of an upcoming book on the Middle East and soccer, says the government has engaged with critics but failed to do enough to persuade the world that it understands the level of reform needed.

Qatar has announced plans to reform labour regulations to improve worker rights and limit abuse by employers, arguing last week that “significant changes have been made over the last year”, but rights groups say the changes do not go far enough. The highly-publicised case of Zahir Belounis, a French-Algerian football player who was prevented from leaving Qatar for two years because of a labour dispute with his employer, was a particularly embarrassing own-goal. The player’s case highlighted outdated labour laws that place workers at the mercy of their employers thanks to the “kafala” labour system that includes an exit permit system that critics say is open to abuse.

“This was an absolute demonstration of the problems that exist with exit visas with the World Cup host detaining an international player over what is pocket change compared to everything else being spent,” said Mr Dorsey.

Qatar’s 2022 World Cup is promising to be a rare example of
a mega sporting event that leaves a legacy of social, political and economic
change – but not in the way the Gulf state’s ruling family had imagined.

Controversy about Qatar’s successful bid coupled with world
soccer body FIFA’s failure to seriously tackle corruption in soccer governance
in its own house as well as its regional federations, prominent among which the
Asian Football Confederation (AFC), led to this week’s unveiling of indictments
against 14 senior current and past soccer FIFA executives and sports
businessmen.

The scandal goes to the heart of not only financial
corruption but also the enabling environment of political corruption rooted in
the political sway of political forces often aligned with autocratic
governments like those of the Middle East within FIFA, the AFC and the Olympic
Council of Asia.

The scandal is compounded by mounting criticism of Qatar’s
controversial labour regime and the Gulf state’s failure to so far make good on
lofty reform promises. That has not only prompted global corporations who
sponsor FIFA to speak out but also sparked discussion on the ethical responsibility
of corporate sponsors embarrassed by what crusading journalist Andrew Jennings
termed a criminal organization.

Given resistance to change within FIFA as well as several
regional soccer bodies like the AFC, only three stakeholders had the potential
of shaking soccer governance’s tree: the judiciary, fans and corporate
sponsors. Prosecutors in the US and Switzerland took the lead this week.

The US Department of Justice had a legal base with the
presence on US soil of the Miami-based Confederation of North, Central America
and Caribbean Association Football (CONCACAF) – virtually all those indicted
hail from the Americas --, the involvement of a prominent US national, the fact
that potentially illicit US dollar payments were processed through US banks,
and the legislative and judicial infrastructure capable of taking on a global
investigation.

By contrast, fans with the exception of a few demonstrations
and statements primarily in Britain and Scotland were largely apathetic to what
was a far-from-my-bed show in the stratosphere of soccer while corporate
sponsors also took a lead in recent weeks with sharp statements criticising
controversial labour conditions in Qatar.

The corporates were joined this week by former and present
international players who in a letter demanded that Qatar abolish its
controversial kafala system or sponsorship system that puts workers at the
mercy of their employers. The letter asserted that those working on the 2022
World Cup were being “held hostage on the world’s biggest building site”

The combination of legal action in the United States and
Switzerland coupled with corporate unrest should give Qatar reason for concern.
The threat to Qatar’s retaining its hosting rights is multi-fold and has
increased substantially with the legal proceedings. The legal proceedings also
threaten with the focus on sports rights companies to shine a spotlight on companies’
cosy commercial relationships with soccer governance bodies that various
regional federations, first and foremost among which the AFC, have sought to
maintain at whatever cost.

While the US investigation appears to be initial focused on
events in the Americas and the 2010 World Cup in South Africa, it is also
looking at the 2011 FIFA presidential election that sparked the downfall
of Mr. Bin Hammam. ‎That election is closely tied to the Qatari bid and
together with the FIFA vote in favour of Russia, the focus of the Swiss
criminal proceedings.

Former FIFA executive committee Chuck Blazer, who has
already pleaded guilty and is cooperating with US authorities, played an
important role in bringing down Mr. Bin Hammam. Mr. Blazer allegedly sat next
to Mr. Bin Hammam during the December 2, 2010 FIFA executive committee meeting
that voted in favour of Qatar and watched‎ the Qatari tick off a list of
names of those voting for the Gulf state. The assertion was that Mr. Bin
Hammam's list included the names of those whom he had bought.

Similarly‎, the sons of disgraced soccer executive, Jack Warner, Darry
and Daryan Warner a former FIFA executive committee member and Bin Hammam
associate, have followed Mr. Blazer in working with US authorities. Jack
Warner, one of the 14 indicted executives, turned himself in to police in
Trinidad and Tobago on Wednesday night local time.

Mr. Warner was instrumental in Mr. Bin Hammam's campaigns
for both the Qatar World Cup and the FIFA presidency. Mr. Warner resigned from
FIFA in 2011 to avoid legal proceedings by the soccer body. Mr. Warner warned
at the time that he would bring the house down on FIFA after he released an
email from FIFA general secretary Jerome Valcke asserting that the Qatar World
Cup had been bought.

While the US and Swiss proceedings ‎focus on
financial corruption, they are unlikely to tackle the equally serious problem
of political corruption resulting from the close association of soccer and
political corruption that often served as an enabler for illicit financial
dealings and are at the heart of FIFA’s Qatar and Russia-related scandals, the
Bin Hammam affair and the AFC scandals the group is seeking to suppress.

This blog together with the Malay Mail sparked the
suspension earlier this month of AFC general secretary Dato Alex Soosay pending
investigation into allegations that he attempted to have documents hidden or
destroyed related to multiple potentially illegal payments as well as the
group’s corporate dealings.

AFC president Sheikh Salman Bin Ebrahim Al Khalifa, a member
of the Bahraini ruling family that in 2011‎ brutally crushed a popular
revolt during which some 150 athletes and sports executives were arrested. They
included on Sheikh Salman's watch as head of the Bahrain Football Association
national soccer team players who were reportedly tortured. Sheikh Salman failed
to stand up for his players or address the allegations against him.

Sheikh Salman has further gone out of his way to bury an
independent audit that disclosed massive financial shenanigans within the AFC
and raised serious questions about the group's $1 billion master rights
agreement with Singapore-based World Sports Group. (WSG). WSG's legal effort to
force this author to disclose sources failed in 2014 with a damning Singapore
Supreme Court ruling against it.

The US and Swiss legal proceedings put the Qatari World Cup
bid in the spotlight.‎ Recent revelations by The Sunday Times leave little doubt
about corruption in the Qatari bid. But to be fair, Qatar and Russia played the
game the way it is played in FIFA. England lost its 2018 World Cup bid for the
simple reason that it insisted on walking a straight and ethically and legally
correct line.

As a result, depriving Qatar of its hosting rights without
also tackling Russia and more importantly radically reforming FIFA and soccer
governance worldwide to root out a culture of financial and political
corruption would turn the Gulf state into a scapegoat. Moreover, the question
is, what is the most favourable result of the legal proceedings: uprooting a
deep-rooted culture, enabling sporting mega events to be vehicles of change or
punitive retribution?

‎While Qatar scrambles to counter potential fallout from the
legal proceedings, it is certain to feel pressure to act swiftly to address
concerns about the working and living conditions of workers, including those
involved in World Cup-related construction projects. Migrant workers constitute
the majority of Qatar's population.

To Qatar's credit, it stands out since winning its World Cup
hosting rights as the only Gulf state to engage with its critics in a part of
the world that incarcerates or bars entry to those who don't tow the autocrats'
line. Qatar has in recent weeks been under fire for failing to make good on
lofty promises and cracking down on its critics as well as foreign media
reporting on labour and World Cup-related issues.

Qatar’s engagement was a first step in the kind of change
the 2022 World Cup can spark. So is the fact that corporate sponsors are
rethinking what it means to grant financial support.

“What are brands Adidas, Gazprom, Hyundai, Kia, McDonald’s,
Budweiser, Coca-Cola and Visa to do over allegations of improper conduct in
working conditions at the 2022 World Cup building sites in Qatar?... A brand’s
moral compass is being tested here and whilst many brands had commented last
year, most notably Adidas who’s association with FIFA extends to 2030, issued
statements alongside Sony… As consumers we can influence and help brands
recognise and understand that as global citizens our expectation is that we’d
at least like them to demonstrate that they care and lead by example,” said
David Todaro, writing in Branding Magazine.

James M.
Dorsey is a senior fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies
as Nanyang Technological University in Singapore, co-director of the Institute
of Fan Culture of the University of Würzburg and the author of the blog, The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer, and a forthcoming book with the
same title.

Monday, May 25, 2015

RSIS Commentary is a platform to provide timely
and, where appropriate, policy-relevant commentary and analysis of topical
issues and contemporary developments. The views of the authors are their own
and do not represent the official position of the S. Rajaratnam School of
International Studies, NTU. These commentaries may be reproduced electronically
or in print with prior permission from RSIS and due recognition to the
author(s) and RSIS. Please email: RSISPublications@ntu.edu.sgfor feedback to the Editor RSIS Commentary, Yang
Razali Kassim.

No. 125/2015 dated 25 May 2015

Middle East and
North Africa:Forcing China to Revisit
Long-standing Policies

By James M. Dorsey

Synopsis

The fractious Middle East and North Africa is compelling China to rethink its
long-standing principle of non-interventionism to protect its economic
interests. It is also prompting it to articulate a Middle East policy that
serves China’s interests without putting it at loggerheads with the United
States.Commentary

A SCAN of white papers on multiple foreign policy issues published by the
Chinese government is glaring for one thing: the absence of a formulated,
conceptual approach towards the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). This is a
part of the world that is crucial not only to Chinese strategic and economic
interests but also to how tensions in the restless Muslim province of Xinjiang
will develop.

For much of the four decades of economic reform that has positioned China as
one of the world’s foremost players, the People’s Republic could remain aloof
to crises in the MENA region as Beijing single-mindedly pursued its resource
and-export driven objectives. That is proving increasingly difficult as tortuous,
bloody and violent conflicts threaten to redraw the post-colonial borders of a
region that is crucial to a continued flow of oil and through which at least 60
percent of Chinese exports pass.

Taking off the horse
blinders

The MENA region moreover has become home to hundreds of thousands of Chinese
expatriates who repeatedly have had to be rescued from escalating violence in
countries like Libya, Syria, Iraq and Yemen or who were taken hostage by
insurgents or criminal gangs in places like Egypt’s Sinai desert and Sudan. As
a result, China has been forced to breach its policy of non-interventionism by
establishing ties to opposition forces in countries like Libya, Syria and
Afghanistan to hedge its bets in situations of political change.

The rise of Islamic State, the jihadist group that is expanding its control of
swaths of Syria and Iraq and is attracting hundreds of Chinese Muslims as
foreign fighters, is further forcing China to take the horse blinders off its
approach towards the MENA region. China realises that it needs a new approach
that would allow it to increasingly relax its long-standing insistence on
non-interference in the domestic affairs of others while assuring it is not
seeking to become a global military power through the establishment of military
bases in far-flung lands.

Beijing has to do so without officially surrendering those policies or
challenging the United States. on whom it relies for the security of key
regions like the Gulf. In groping for a cohesive policy, China has to
compensate for limitations to its ability to project military and political
power. It is having to accommodate a broadening spectrum of domestic players
with vested interests in Chinese policy towards the Middle East and North
Africa, including national oil companies and security authorities.

Compensating for
limitations

“The deep political changes in the Middle East, the restructuring of the
regional system and the strategy adjustment of the US, Europe and other Great
Powers…suggest that it is urgent for China to work out mid-term and long-term
diplomatic strategy toward the Middle East and corresponding mechanism and
measures,” warned Middle East scholar Liu Zhongmin.

China’s limitations were evident in the failure of mediation efforts in the
Sudan in 2011 and 2014 and a half-hearted Chinese attempt in 2013 to negotiate
an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal that went no-where. The failures
notwithstanding, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi signalled a recognition that
non-interventionism was unlikely to be sustainable when he told the United
Nations General Assembly in 2013 that China would play a “more proactive and
constructive role” in the world’s hot spots and provide “public goods to the
international community”.

In their search for a Middle East policy, Chinese officials are driven by their
perception of misguided US support for political change in the region. They see
a waning US influence, as shown in Washington’s reluctance to become
further embroiled in the region’s conflicts, foremost in Syria, and its
inability to nudge Israelis and Palestinians towards a resolution of their
dispute. They also fear that the projection of Chinese power through military
bases runs the risk of being further sucked into the Middle Eastern and North
African vortex.

Building naval bases

Avoiding this is, however, proving to be easier said than done. Djibouti
President Ismail Omar Guelleh recently disclosed that China was negotiating to
establish a naval base in the African state’s northern port of Obock. The base is
an outcome of a military agreement concluded in 2014 between China and
Djibouti, which hosts the US’ only permanent military facility in Africa - an
agreement that was criticised by Washington.

The International Business Herald, a paper published by Xinhua News Agency,
moreover reported that China was likely to establish over the next decade three
strings of “overseas strategic support bases” totalling 18 facilities: a North
Indian Ocean supply line with bases in Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Myanmar; a Western
Indian Ocean supply line with bases in Djibouti, Yemen, Oman, Kenya, Tanzania
and Mozambique; and a central-south Indian Ocean supply line with bases in
Seychelles and Madagascar.

Concern about Xinjiang, home to a Turkic-speaking people that has long felt
culturally more akin to the region’s Turkic trading partners than to the Han
Chinese, is undermining China’s adherence to the principle of non-intervention
and forces China to balance contradictory approaches. In Iraq, for instance,
China supports the fight against Islamic State while in Syria it backs the
government of Bashar al-Assad against rebels who confront both the Syrian
regime and Islamic State.

Competing with IS for oil

The self-proclaimed Islamic State’s expansion in Iraq in 2014 moreover put the
group in direct competition with China for access to Iraq’s energy resources in
which Beijing is heavily invested. As a result, China has agreed to
intelligence cooperation with the US-led coalition in Iraq while some analysts
have called on the government to contribute financially and materially as well
as with training.

Ironically, as China tries to come to grips with realities on the ground, it
faces the same dilemma that stymies US policy in the Middle East: the clash
between lofty principles and a harsh reality that produces perceptions of a
policy that is riddled with contradictions and fails to live up to the values
it advocates. Non-alignment and non-intervention coupled with economic
incentives have so far allowed China to paper over some of those dilemmas.
Increasingly, that no longer is an option.

James M.
Dorsey is a senior fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies
as Nanyang Technological University in Singapore, co-director of the Institute
of Fan Culture of the University of Würzburg and the author of the blog, The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer, and a forthcoming book with the
same title.

Sunday, May 24, 2015

Widely viewed as a shrewd financial investor, Qatar’s return
on investment in soft power designed to position it as a progressive ally of
world powers in the hope that they will come to the aid of the wealthy Gulf state
in times of emergency is proving to be abysmal.

Qatar has invested billions of dollars in the building
blocks of soft power that range from the hosting of multiple sporting events,
foremost among which the 2022 World Cup; glitzy, high profile real estate in
Western capitals; acquisition of icons of Western economies; Western and
Islamic art; and bold foreign policy initiatives designed to aid governments in
hostage situations and with contacts that they were not able to initiate or
manage themselves.

Yet, the payback in Qatar’s reputation, attitudes of law
enforcement-related governmental agencies, non-governmental organizations,
including trade unions and human rights groups and the public, and media
headlines has been everything but congratulatory.

The portrait of Qatar that emerges from a review of
responses and media coverage in the first five months of this year pictures a
nation that treats migrant workers, the majority of its population, as sub
humans; is increasingly becoming the target of audiences like soccer fans and
the corporate sponsors of world soccer governing body FIFA that it hopes to
charm; hosts a controversial, embattled global media operation that once was an
unambiguously admired, exemplary member of the world press even though it still
more often than not produces world class journalism; and maintains relations
with dubious groups viewed as brutal and intrinsically hostile to the West.

There seems no end to the negative publicity Qatar
generates, part of it the result, to be fair, of complex policy issues posed by
the labour issue in a nation in which the citizenry accounts for a mere 12
percent of the population.

Much of it however is also due to a failure to take decisive
steps that would convince its critics of its sincerity without being forced to
tackle to most difficult and potentially existential issues associated with the
labour problem. Qatar’s knockouts in the public relations ring are further the
result of a disastrous communications policy to which it seems to be clinging
despite the fact that it has contributed to Qatar’s defeats in the public
affairs arena rather than to shaping a positive image for the Gulf state.

If anything, Qatar in recent months has been moving from bad
to worse as it responds to crisis after crisis with tired pledges and clichés,
reactions that further undermine whatever credibility it has left, and with
actions, including a crackdown on the very critics with whom it engaged in a
bid to curry favour and benefit from advice proffered.

A look at the last two month says it all. Amnesty International
titled its evaluation of the implementation of four years of Qatari promises to
improve the living and working conditions of migrant workers in advance of the
World Cup, ‘Promising Little, Delivering Less.’

As if to drive the point home, it was not Qatari aid to the
victims of two devastating earthquakes in Nepal that made headlines but the
refusal of contractors working on World Cup-related projects to grant Nepalese
labourers compassion leave to return home to attend funerals or visit relatives.
The refusal that sparked rare criticism from a labour-supplying nation followed
the opening in France of an investigation of a Qatari-French joint venture into
alleged abuse of workers on World Cup projects.

Similarly, FIFA sponsors with Visa in the lead have voiced
rare public concern in advance of next week’s FIFA executive committee meeting
and congress where Qatar is either on the agenda or likely to be a lively topic
of conversation in the corridors. In a statement, Visa expressed “grave concern”
for the plight of migrant workers in Qatar. Other sponsors, including Coca Cola
and Adidas, the company that was at the birth of FIFA’s booming finances,
worried about the negative impact of their association with FIFA because of its
controversial decision to award Qatar the World Cup issued similar statements.

The potential fan backlash was evident in a fake Coke ad
that circulated on the Internet portraying Coca Cola as a supporter of human
rights abuses in Qatar and an increasing number of anti-Qatar protests by fans and
national soccer bodies.

England’s Football Association rejected Qatar as a sponsor
opting instead for Emirates of Dubai, a part of the United Arab Emirates, Qatar’s
arch rival that fares little better in its record of accommodating migrant
workers. Scottish fans put the Scottish Football Association on the defensive
for accepting to play a friendly against Qatar while supporters of Chelsea
demonstrated against labour conditions in Qatar.

By the same token, Qatar has done little to endear itself to
the media, an important potential conveyor of its message by repeatedly jailing
western journalists reporting on labour issues in the Gulf state, seeking to
justify the detentions with at times seemingly false legalistic arguments, and
advising sources to lie low.

It is Qatar rather than the media that pays the price for
these misguided steps, particularly given that Qatari credibility was further
undermined by seemingly less than truthful statements about the integrity of
its World Cup bid and the role played by disgraced former FIFA and Asian
Football Confederation (AFC) executive Mohammed Bin Hammam laid bare in
investigative reporting by The Sunday Times.

Mr. Bin Hammam was in 2012 banned for life by FIFA from
involvement in professional soccer and silenced by a backhand deal between
Qatar and the soccer body. Adding insult to injury, Qatar dented its effort to
project itself as an enthusiastic sporting nation with the import of fans, some
from labour camps, and others from as far as Spain.

Qatar’s flagship media operation, Al Jazeera, has further
been tarnished by allegations that its Arabic channel was too closely
associated with the Muslim Brotherhood, charges that its English channel failed
to properly support its imprisoned reporters in Egypt that have culminated in a
$100 million legal case against the network, and a scandal involving alleged
sexism and anti-Semitism at its US channel that has led to a management
shake-up.

The bottom line is that Qatar is getting no buck for the billions
of dollars it has invested in what is fundamentally a smart soft power pillar
of its overall security and defense policy. Qatar sees soft power as way to
compensate for its inability to defend itself irrespective of how much and how sophisticated
the military hardware is that it acquires and how many foreigners it drafts
into its security forces and military to make up for its lack of bodies.

Nussaibah Younis of the Project on Middle East Democracy
summed up neatly in an editorial in The Guardian what Qatar needs to do. “If
Qatar wants to be counted among the most credible and valued powers partnering
with the west, it must deal comprehensively with the abuse of migrant workers
and decide where it stands on crucial issues such as freedom of the press,” Mr.
Younis said. Mr. Younis is not the only one to have proffered that advice. So
far, it seems to have gone unnoticed in Doha.

James M.
Dorsey is a senior fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies
as Nanyang Technological University in Singapore, co-director of the Institute
of Fan Culture of the University of Würzburg and the author of the blog, The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer, and a forthcoming book with the
same title.

When Mohamed Aboutrika walked off the pitch after his final game for Cairo club Al Ahly in their victorious 2013 African Champions League final, he was mobbed by players, fans, and even police officers. Everyone wanted to touch the midfield genius, who had a penchant for scoring crucial late goals.

As Al Ahly’s talismanic playmaker, Aboutrika won seven league titles and five African Champions League cups. He was named African player of the year four times and won over 100 caps for the Egyptian national team, twice driving them to victory in the African Cup of Nations.

It’s difficult to overstate how popular Aboutrika is in football-crazed Egypt; the hugely successful former playmaker is a national hero. “His popularity is much bigger than the president’s,” says Hatem Maher, a senior editor at Ahram Online. “He’s not only the most popular sporting figure - he’s the most popular figure.”

Yet Aboutrika is also widely regarded as an Islamist, and the Egyptian authorities are in the midst of an ongoing crackdown on dissent. Earlier this month the state seized Aboutrika’s assets in a travel company that he part-owns, which the government alleges is being used to fund violence by the Muslim Brotherhood.

Investigations are underway and Aboutrika may face prosecution. Aboutrika is not the first footballer to fall foul of the authorities, but his targeting may hold more significance in Egypt’s evolving political climate and the case may test the limits of the crackdown, with some people saying that targeting Aboutrika is a “red line” that the government would be wise not to cross.

‘He made the whole nation happy’

Aboutrika, now 36, is an almost unique figure in Egyptian society - one who transcends stark political and sporting divides. “He has the ability to rise about the fault line,” says Yasser Thabet, the author of several books on Egyptian football.

Aboutrika is so popular that he often transcends the bitter divide between Al Ahly and their Cairene arch-rivals Zamalek. “I know a lot of Zamalek fans who love him,” says Mostafa - a former member of the hardcore Zamalek fan group Ultras White Knights. “[He is] one of the most popular guys in Egypt in decades.”

“He was the backbone of the national team” says Mostafa, a begrudging admirer of Aboutrika. “He made the whole nation happy, so we will never forget him.”

Aboutrika also gained respect among many Egyptians for his perceived humility, piety and outspoken support for humanitarian causes, including Gaza. After scoring against Sudan in the 2008 African Nations Cup final, he lifted up his shirt to reveal a T-shirt with the message “Sympathise with Gaza”, earning a reprimand from the tournament’s organisers.

He is adored by Al Ahly’s hardcore fan group Ultras Ahlawy, who played a key role in the demonstrations that toppled the autocratic president Hosni Mubarak.

Aboutrika has publicly supported the Ultras, particularly in the wake of the 2012 Port Said disaster - a politically freighted mass brawl in which at least 72 Al Ahly fans were killed. Aboutrika held one of the dying supporters in his arms that night.

However, Aboutrika’s political stances have also stirred controversy. Unlike many players Aboutrika did not publicly back Mubarak during the 2011 uprising, and he publicly refused to shake the hand of Egypt’s subsequent military leader Mohamed Hussein Tantawi in the wake of Port Said disaster. Aboutrika endorsed the Islamist, Muslim Brotherhood-affiliated Mohamed Morsi in the 2012 presidential elections.

Thousands have been jailed and hundreds killed in protests during a crackdown on the Muslim Brotherhood following the military’s ousting of Morsi in July 2013. Aboutrika spoke out against the coup - although he has since scaled back his outspokenness after he was criticised for mixing sport and politics. On Saturday an Egyptian court sentenced Morsi and more than 100 others to death for their role in a 2011 jailbreak.

Aboutrika is a rare breed in Egypt: a famous Islamist who most anti-Islamists don’t hate, a symbol of unity. But his political stances have made him enemies in the country’s partisan, pro-military media. It may be uncomfortable for many that Egypt’s most popular man is also allegedly a supporter of the Muslim Brotherhood.

Aboutrika targeted

Earlier this month a government committee tasked with confiscating assets of organisations that fund the Muslim Brotherhood - blacklisted as a terrorist group in December 2013 - seizedAboutrika’s shares in Asshab Tours, a travel company that he helped form in 2012. The company is accused of funding violence by the Brotherhood and its director was arrested on charges of participating in hostile acts towards the state. Asshab Tours declined to comment to Middle East Eye, instead referring to statements on the company’s Facebook page which deny the allegations.

In response to the moves, Aboutrika posted a defiant message online, saying: “Confiscate the money or confiscate the money’s owner, I will not leave the country, and I will continue to work for its prosperity.” He also protested his innocence in a rare interview with the state-run newspaper Al Ahram. An appeal by Aboutrika against the confiscation of his assets wasrejected on 11 May.

Investigations are ongoing and Aboutrika has not yet been arrested or charged. It is not clear whether the move is aimed primarily at the company or whether the authorities have also seized an opportunity to target Aboutrika. “It might have something personal in it,” said Ahram Online’s Maher. “They might try to tarnish his image by [portraying] him as a backer of what the Brotherhood is doing.”

A ‘red line’

Thabet says that many thought Aboutrika would be able to remain outside of the crackdown on Islamists due to his profile.

He has faced criticism from a minority on social media who reacted to the seizure of his assets by arguing that Aboutrika should be subject to the law, and describing him as a Brotherhood “sheep” (although he has never directly expressed support for them).

Some believe that indicting Aboutrika is a risky move for the government due to his immense popularity. “Many of those who are pro-government are [still] hesitant to attack Aboutrika,” says Thabet.

His case has prompted an outcry. Several players, many of whom are cautious about getting involved in politics, have backed Aboutrika.

Others are sceptical of the “red line” argument. “The fact that you criticise a government for a specific act does not necessarily mean that you’ve stopped supporting that government,” points out James M. Dorsey, author of a blog and a forthcoming book about football in the Middle East. “Whether or not this is a red line that’s going to persuade people to switch their support away from [president] Al-Sisi’s government is doubtful.”

Yet Dorsey argues that Aboutrika’s case is important in the context of growing criticism of President Al-Sisi in the Egyptian media, amid limited economic progress and the recent leaking of embarrassing tape recordings which suggest that segments of the military may not be entirely happy with his presidency.

“I think [the case] is significant in that it has rallied a lot of people behind Aboutrika. That amounts to widespread criticism of an act by the government, which is significant in an environment in which [a major] segment of the power elite are becoming more critical of al-Sisi and the fact that al-Sisi has yet to deliver,” says Dorsey.

Aboutrika’s likely fate

The targeting of Aboutrika suggests that the crackdown on dissent may in fact be deepening, and that the authorities are far from attempting any kind of rapprochement with the Brotherhood who, although reviled by many and severely weakened, remain one of the most significant political movements in the country.

The move also highlights the politicisation of football in Egypt, which is currently in a dire state. Football supporters have been banned from stadiums for much of the past four years, and have been widely targeted as part of the state’s crackdown. At least 19 Zamalek fans were killed in clashes with the police outside a Cairo stadium in February. Following the deaths, Aboutrika said that "Egyptian football died after the Air Defence Stadium massacre”.

On the same day that Morsi was sentenced to death another Cairo court banned the activities of all Ultras in the country, following a private lawsuit brought by Zamalek’s club president Mortada Mansour.

Other footballers have got into sticky situations for their political stance.

The Al Ahly striker Ahmed Abdel Zaher was sanctioned by his club after he celebrated a goal by displaying the four finger gesture representing support for the hundreds killed during the security forces’ violent dispersal of a pro-Morsi sit-in at Rabaa in August 2013. Zaher was shipped out on loan to a Libyan team, although – duly chastened - he was later brought back into the Al Ahly side.

Ultimately few expect the authorities to take the case against Aboutrika any further, but it remains to be seen whether his popularity can shield him.

“If it was a lesser known or a less popular player I think Aboutrika would have been through harsher times,” said Thabet. “His popularity has given him some immunity.”

The sport’s most volatile supporters are banned

FOOTBALL, like politics, arouses strong passions in Egypt. Bring the two together and you get a combustible mixture. Add police brutality and you get the explosive atmosphere of Egypt’s football league.

Rivalries between opposing clubs are heated. The league was cancelled in 2012 after a brawl at a match in Port Said left 74 dead. (Play was suspended the next year, too.) But the animosity between Egypt’s hard-core fans, known as “ultras”, and the authorities—who share blame for the Port Said violence—is even fiercer. Matches are now played behind closed doors, without fans, to avoid incidents. On May 16th a court in Cairo tried to stamp out any remaining embers by banning ultra groups.

The case against the ultras was brought by Mortada Mansour, the chairman of Cairo-based Zamalek SC and a supporter of Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi, Egypt’s president. Mr Mansour is hated by fans, who doused him with urine last year. He calls the ultras “terrorists”. When 22 people were killed in a stampede outside a match in February, fans blamed aggressive police. But Mr Mansour said the ultras provoked the security forces. Pressed for an explanation, he replied: “Ask the Muslim Brotherhood.”

Ties to the Brotherhood are often alleged by the government and its allies to discredit opposition. But while some of the ultras are Islamists, their groups (usually linked to clubs) are not associated with the blacklisted movement. That Muhammad Morsi, the ousted president and Muslim Brother, was sentenced to death on the same day the ultras were banned is merely an indication of Mr Sisi’s broad crackdown on dissent. Hardened by their battles with police during the protests that toppled Hosni Mubarak in 2011, some ultras are now “driving the protests against Sisi”, says James Dorsey, author of a forthcoming book on football in the Middle East.

Such activism has earned the ultras, who are generally young and urban, a reputation as an organised political force. That is true of some groupings, such as the Ultras Nahdawy, which is not associated with a club and opposes Mr Sisi. But other ultras bristle at this characterisation. “Maybe after the revolution some of us chanted political slogans in the stadium,” says one, “but the groups never declared official participation in any political event.” Most simply oppose the security forces. “Beyond that, their political views run the gamut,” says Mr Dorsey.

The government nevertheless sees them as a threat. Sixteen “ultras fans and Muslim Brotherhood members”, as the prosecution refers to them, stand accused of causing the incident in February in order to sabotage a big investment conference. Several members of Nahdawy have been killed by security forces. If the ultras and the Brotherhood are as bad as the authorities say, then half of Egyptians are terrorists, notes one fan.

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James M DorseyWelcome to The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer by James M. Dorsey, a senior fellow at Nanyang Technological University’s S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies. Soccer in the Middle East and North Africa is played as much on as off the pitch. Stadiums are a symbol of the battle for political freedom; economic opportunity; ethnic, religious and national identity; and gender rights. Alongside the mosque, the stadium was until the Arab revolt erupted in late 2010 the only alternative public space for venting pent-up anger and frustration. It was the training ground in countries like Egypt and Tunisia where militant fans prepared for a day in which their organization and street battle experience would serve them in the showdown with autocratic rulers. Soccer has its own unique thrill – a high-stakes game of cat and mouse between militants and security forces and a struggle for a trophy grander than the FIFA World Cup: the future of a region. This blog explores the role of soccer at a time of transition from autocratic rule to a more open society. It also features James’s daily political comment on the region’s developments. Contact: incoherentblog@gmail.comView my complete profile